TAJ Mahabalipuram

A one a.m. ceremony changes what flowers have to do. There is no daylight to help, the sea air is working against every stem from the moment it is cut, and the mandap has to hold its colour under artificial light for hours while the ceremony runs its course.

So we built density. A full dome overhead in rose, peony and white, packed tight so it reads as one mass from the aisle and does not thin out when lit from below. The four posts are carried the whole way down, wrapped continuously rather than banded, because a gap at eye level is what makes a mandap look like scaffolding with flowers on it.

Chandeliers hang inside the canopy and the underside falls in a fringe, which gives the couple something above them rather than open sky.

The aisle is banked both sides at floor level, dahlia, rose and daisy in pink through crimson, with glass lanterns run through the planting so the light sits inside the flowers instead of above them.

Beyond the mandap, the sea. Nothing was built to block it.